constitutional issues

Secession is the Answer, Update

Mark Noonan4 Comments

Seems to be spreading like wildfire:

…West Virginia was the last state to break off from another. Now, 150 years later, a 49-year-old information technology consultant wants to apply the knife to Maryland’s five western counties. “The people are the sovereign,” says Scott Strzelczyk, leader of the fledgling Western Maryland Initiative, and the western sovereigns are fed up with Annapolis’s liberal majority, elected by the state’s other sovereigns.

“If you think you have a long list of grievances and it’s been going on for decades, and you can’t get it resolved, ultimately this is what you have to do,” says Strzelczyk, who lives in New Windsor, a historic town of 1,400 people in Carroll County. “Otherwise you are trapped.”…

Maryland is governed by the DC/Baltimore area of the State – holding the largest population and entirely dependent upon Big Government (federal and State), the people of those areas prefer their politicians to be Big Government boosters.  And no problem with that.  More power to them.  But this means that the people of western Maryland – much smaller in population and thus playing little role in either the legislative or executive branches of State government – are left out in the cold…and many of them don’t want a government which is keen mostly upon creating more government.

In government, smaller is better – the smaller the territory under any particular government the more attuned it will be to the needs of the local people.  The Founders knew this – and thus set up a federal Republic in order to secure local rule in most areas of government, leaving to the federal government only those limited powers necessary to secure the broad rights of all the people.  Over time, both the federal and State governments have engrossed power to themselves – and do not think that this was just some trick pulled by hucksters…for a very long time, starting in the misbegotten “progressive” era of the early 20th century, the people, themselves, sought government to “do something” about problems.  The trouble is that government “doing something” means government growing in power…and often not doing at all what people wanted.  Now the reaction has set in – and in a very American fashion, it is emerging on the national level as a revived “Jacksonian” desire to reign in the federal government, and a desire to break up the States in to smaller political units which can better be managed by the people, rather than being resigned to the Ruling Class and it’s permanent bureaucracy.

This is the revolution, folks – the Second American Revolution.  The people are leading it, and it will reform this great nation of ours.

Secession is the Answer Update

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Yet another move to bring rationality to American politics:

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 this afternoon to pursue seceding from California.

More than 100 people packed the supervisors’ chambers late this morning for a discussion on whether the county should issue a declaration that it wants to secede from the state. Nearly all those in attendance appeared to be for the move…

Siskiyou County is a rural county in northern California which has zero effective representation in both the California legislature and the United States Senate…both places merely representing coastal/urban California with no thought to the rest of the State.  The country is burdened by taxes and regulations written by the coastal/urban areas which bear little relation to the needs and aspirations of the people of Siskiyou.  The only way these people can get representation is to have their own State and send their own Senators to DC.

More and more of this is what we need.

It is Time for a Conservative Anti-War Movement

Mark Noonan38 Comments

As the Ruling Class circles the wagons around Obama and determines upon war in Syria to pull Obama’s bacon out of the fire, the question becomes: what can we do?  My answer:  start an anti-war movement.

To be sure, the anti-war movement in the United States has heretofore been the province of leftists – and very often the most kooky of leftists.  The left’s anti-war activity has tended towards being anti-American in effect – and more commonly anti-GOP, because we see how invisible it is now that a liberal Democrat is proposing war.  But just because leftists kooks have been anti-war that doesn’t mean that being anti-war is wrong, provided your being anti-war for sensible reasons.

War is a terrible, cruel and nasty business and should be avoided if at all possible.  Some times it is, however, necessary.  War will come when it comes – and there may even come times when it is necessary for us to start the war.  But what we have here in Syria is a war that isn’t coming to us and which we have no need to start.  The United States is not threatened.  US allies are not threatened.  The two sides in the Syrian civil war are equally bad – think of it like the Spanish civil war of the 1930’s where communists and fascists battled it out.  What possible good would US intervention have done back then – we’d have either midwifed a communist or fascist dictatorship.  In Syria, we can back Assad’s hideous regime, or back the al-Qaeda-like rebels.  No good.

The problem we have today started a long time ago – when Truman criminally hurled us in to the Korean War without obtaining Congressional approval.  That is when the war-making powers of Congress first began to atrophy.  These days, we have plenty of people – including some who are not at all dumb – saying that the President has authority to launch military action in Syria based upon his powers as Commander in Chief.  That is an absurd reading of the Constitution – but it is entirely in line with practice over the past 63 years.  A conservative anti-war movement must have as its goal the reform of this pernicious doctrine – we must return war-declaring power to the Congress.

While getting 100,000 people in to DC by Monday next might short-circuit this war in Syria, I doubt much that such a crowd can be gathered on such short notice.  Looking for the longer term, we should be seeking a law which will specifically prohibit the expenditure of defense funds on offensive actions not authorized by Congress (it is the power of the purse which gives Congress its actual power).  No money can be drawn from the Treasury without Congressional authorization, so all military expenditures would be covered by a law which says that the money can’t be used for offensive operations until Congress declares war (and it is preferred that it be an actual declaration of war – not an authorization to use force). This would still allow the President to use military force to defend – to defend the United States and our allies.  But it would not allow the Syrian strike (nor would it have allowed the Libyan war…and for you liberals out there if you want a piece of this, it would have prevented Panama in 1989 and Grenada in 1983) unless Obama obtains a declaration of war against Syria, first.

This all fits in with the broader, conservative desire to reform government by re-limiting its powers as intended by the Founders.  Only a limited government is a free government – and if we don’t stop this sort of thing, we will find ourselves living in an unfree nation very shortly.

Tell Us Something We Didn’t Already Know!

tiredoflibbs10 Comments

Another proggy myth disproven! Of course, the proggy politicians already knew this.

Really all you had to do was look where gun control was in place and see the crime statistics!

Gun Control Reduces Violent Crimes

The proggy drones will be out in force regurgitating the mindless talking points. (Since this posting, they have not – I guess they did not get their marching orders).

In short, as we defenders of the 2nd Amendment have long known, the observable facts simply will not support the strictly emotional arguments of the aping gun grabbers regarding both violent crime and suicide. Interestingly, the study also relates a survey of incarcerated felons that confirms that a criminal’s greatest fear is that his victim may be armed. That certainly makesthe case for a well-armed citizenry regardless of the definition of militia. The fact that the most recent acts of gun violence were conducted in gun free zones (by mentally troubled individuals who should have been in an institution – another leftist barrier), also shows the folly of the left’s mindless arguments.

The Failure of Democracy

Mark Noonan70 Comments

Which is worse:  a democracy where minorities are oppressed or a dictatorship where minorities are protected?  Before you answer that question, do keep in mind that every single human being on earth is in the minority at some point – whether its because of your gender, skin color, religion, political beliefs or what have you, at some juncture in your life there are more of them than there are of you.  All of us are minorities and thus all of us are a potential target for a democracy ruled by demagogues – ruled by those who single out a minority as the source of evil which must be destroyed. 

In a very real sense, the primary purpose of government is to protect minorities – because only when minorities are protected can justice be said to exist to any extent, at all.  It doesn’t matter how democratic a nation is or how regularly it votes – if a minority is being oppressed, then it is an unjust society and the government is not carrying out its primary function.  Government must ensure that each of us – especially when we are in the minority – are as far as possible allowed to go about our lives without let or hindrance from anyone else.  Given this, better, say, a military dictatorship which will protect all the minorities than a democracy which deliberately attacks some minorities.

Of course, vastly better than either is a government of free people which also protects minorities.  Once upon a time, our government was the best example of that humanity had ever devised.  It is in tatters and shreds right now – so bad that the government is deliberately breaking the law in the matter of the debt limit, domestic spying, ObamaCare implementation and other matters and hardly a peep is raised about it.  But it is still to some extent in existence – we are still partially free; partially protected in our minority rights, that is. 

What is happening in Egypt should send a chill down our spines – because that is what democracy becomes when people are convinced that a vote of the majority rules all.  The Morsi government won the election fair and square and proceeded to do whatever it pleased – because “the people” had said so.  Of course, it wasn’t all of the people – the people will never be unanimous.  There will always be a minority which doesn’t agree – and the first duty of the government, even if supported by 99% of the people, is to ensure that the 1% disagreeing get what they want, even (and especially) if that is no more than to be left alone.  In the United States there are plenty of Americans who now think like the Morsi supporters:  they’ve won the election and so they get to do whatever they want and the minority must knuckle under.  That, however, is a failure of democracy – a failure to understand that we have a democracy not to determine what everyone must do, but to ensure that everyone can do as they wish, as far as practical.

For democracy to work there must be built in to it massive prohibitions against government action – for the very purpose of ensuring that a transient political majority doesn’t get it in their heads that victory at the polls is last word in government.  Our Bill of Rights is our primary bulwark against the failure of democracy.  What many people – mostly on the left – don’t understand is that if they don’t keep up the bulwarks, then the whole thing will come crashing down in to revolt and eventual civil war.  Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed – but, remember, only their just powers.  Just powers cannot be all powers because all powers cannot be granted to the government for the simple reason that not all people will consent to it.

I urge everyone not to tempt fate.  Do not push things too far.  Resign yourself to the fact that people will disagree and will have a right to disagree even to the point where you are offended.  We are straying very close to a precipice right now – our government has grown arrogant; our political pressure groups think they are invincible.  Some people are thinking that “history” is on their side, again (the Nazis and Communists thought that, too).  Democracy is failing – here and around the world – because in too many lands a temporary majority thinks it has the right to re-order everyone’s lives.  Stop it.  Now.  And let democracy be a success, again.

America: Land of the Unfree…Are We Still the Home of the Brave?

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Reading that headline, you might think that what I’m on about is the NSA and IRS scandals – and that does play a role, here, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve been worried about the erosion of our liberties for quite some time.  I just happen to have concluded, as of today, that we are simply an unfree people.

Scanning our emails, etc is just a symptom of a larger problem.  If we were a free people it wouldn’t be that our emails weren’t scanned but that no one in government would dare to even suggest it, let alone carry it out.  Free people keep the government on its toes – these days, fellow Americans, it is government which keeps us on our toes.  We can’t even turn around without first obtaining a “by your leave” from the government.

Do you think you own property?  Paid the mortgage and the title deed is in your hand?  Ha!  You don’t own it.  You’re just renting it from the government – they call it “property taxes”, but rent it is…and if you don’t pay the rent, you’re off the property.  And, worse than that, if the government figures that someone else can pay more rent than you, then they’ll take “your” property from you and hand it over to the other guy.

Do you think you’ve got freedom of speech?  Go to a college campus or corporate break room and merely state the Catholic position on homosexuality.  You’ll be lucky if you’re only fired from your job or escorted off campus by the police.

Do you think you’ve got freedom of assembly?  Tell that to all the groups with “patriot” in their name back in 2012 – the IRS deliberately oppressed them for the simple fact that patriots wanted to gather together and petition their government.

Do you think you’ve got free exercise of religion?  Oh, for crying out loud – try to maintain a cross in honor of fallen soldiers of even mention God at an official function at school.  You’ve got the ability to go to Church – but if you take what the pastor preached and try to apply it in the public square, you’ll swiftly learn just how free you are to exercise your religion:  hardly at all.

To be sure, there is a vestige of freedom left – more from a force of habit than anything else.  Because until rather recently we were free it hasn’t become entirely ingrained in us to knuckle under, nor ingrained in government to immediately wipe out all dissent.  The tattered remnants of liberty are still left to us – and therein lies the question: are we brave enough to seize our freedom back from those who have usurped it?

That, quite honestly, I don’t know.  But we do have the capability – while government is still yet weak enough that it can be forced back in to its proper role.  We can, if we are brave enough to face the hatred and spite of our rulers and their misguided followers, simply vote out the oppressors and pass the necessary laws to restore freedom and restrict government.  If we are brave, then we will do it – and we will be, once again, the land of the free as well as home of the brave.  Time will tell what path we choose – the brave path to freedom, or the cowardly path to slavery.

The Frightening Attacks on American Liberty

Mark Noonan74 Comments

I’ve been pondering all the scandals – adding to or expanding on those of which originated in Obama’s first term, as detailed in 150 Reasons (you really should pick it up, in light of the latest revelations) – and I have felt a deep chill come over my American heart.  There is a fundamental flaw here – a deep chasm has now opened between those like myself and those who, after these recent revelations, will continue to back President Obama.

The final straw has been the story of the Obama Administration’s pursuit of Fox News correspondent James Rosen – when coupled with the investigation of the Associated Press and the rampant abuse of power by the IRS, what we have here is an Administration which (a) does not care about the law, (b) is willing to act routinely in an un-American manner and (c) views its political opponents as worthy targets for criminal investigations.  Furthermore, even slavish devotion to Obama (as routinely carried out by the Associated Press) is no defense: as in tyrannies past, all you need do to destroy years of being a toady is just once step out of line.

Of course, to set the record entirely straight, this isn’t all just Obama.  For more than a century, now, we’ve had Presidents willing to cut constitutional corners.  Indeed, the first Chief Executive to introduce extra-constitutional acts in to the Administration was Republican Theodore Roosevelt, honored to this day both on the left and the right as a great and good President – but it was Roosevelt who first asserted that unless the Constitution specifically forbade a government act, it was legitimate.  This stands in stark contrast to, say, Grover Cleveland, Andrew Jackson and other, earlier Presidents who had, at times, vetoed legislation not because they thought the law wrong, but because they found no warrant for it in the Constitution.  From Teddy Roosevelt through Wilson to FDR to Nixon to Obama is a straight line – with plenty of others along the way since 1901 also playing fast and loose with the law (really, only Coolidge in the 20’s put a brake on such actions).  But there is a difference, now, in what Obama has done.

And once again setting the record entirely straight, there is a lot of similarity between Obama’s actions and Nixon’s in the early 70’s – especially in using the IRS as a bludgeon against opponents (there are also some strong indicators that Clinton used the IRS in a similar manner, though no where near the brazenness of Nixon and Obama).  But, still, even with the record of Nixon before us, Obama stands in a world apart – taking steps which are not just corrupt or illegal or corner-cutting, but in direct contravention of all that Americans have fought and bled for over more than two centuries.  The stories of IRS agents demanding what amounts of loyalty oaths from pro-lifers not to picket Planned Parenthood and demanding to know how conservatives pray are just disgusting – so horrific and un-American that I never imagined that someone sharing my citizenship could ever ask such things.  These attacks against freedom of speech and religion are joined with attacks on freedom of the press – with the Administration seeking to intimidate reporters in to silence (doubly strange given that 90% of reporters are devoted to Obama).  We have here an Administration which not only doesn’t like opposition (no Administration actually does, of course), but which is determined to stamp out dissent – determined, that is, that only Administration propaganda be allowed in America, all other voices silenced.

This is not – or, at least, should not be – a left/right issue.  This is about basic, American freedoms.  It is no business of government how I pray, whom I decide to picket or what news I choose to report or read.  There is no legitimate reason for government to even query me on such subjects as no such actions can in any way, shape or form risk the liberty and safety of the American people which our government was created to secure.  A thorough investigation needs to be conducted.  All those involved – whether as actual law-breakers or those who knew of it but didn’t report it – must be dismissed from further government employment.  Strict laws must be enacted prohibiting any such action in the future.  Permanent, non-partisan oversight must be established over all federal law enforcement agencies – over any agency which can take an American’s life, liberty or property, that is.

As a final thought – shame on us, fellow Americans.  We have sunk very low and our ancestors must be ashamed of us.  Those who died fighting for our liberty must be turning in their graves.  That it took such shocking actions to even partially wake us up is sad commentary on how used to government power we’ve become.  Our ancestors would have been outraged over all this a long time ago.  It is time to call a halt to this abuse of power – this tyrannical use of the federal government against dissenters.  It is time to restore the balance – with the scales massively weighted in favor of the liberty of the American people.

Time for a Special Prosecutor and a Select Committee

Mark Noonan68 Comments

Not, I must stress, because impeachment is on the table – that, my friends, is just about impossible.  To convict President Obama here in 2013 would require the votes of at least 22 Democrat Senators, and that is presuming that all 45 GOP Senators showed some backbone.  Ain’t gonna happen.  But, we still need the Special Prosecutor and the Select Committee.  Here’s why:

As far as the Special Prosecutor goes, because it is appears that quite a lot of law-breaking has been going on in the Obama Administration and we simply cannot trust Attorney General to enforce the law.  Heck, we can’t be certain Holder even knows what a law is (no indications that Obama knows what a law is, either).  When people break laws – and especially when they break laws in positions of public trust – then just must be done.  It is the only way to ensure that the American people have confidence that their government, on the whole, is honestly run.  If rampant criminality is allowed to flourish, then the remaining shreds and tatters of respect for the government will fall – and just about anything can happen, at that point.  Tyrants rise upon the ruins of corrupt governments, my friends – a Special Prosecutor empowered to investigate all of the Obama scandals (especially the IRS, Fast and Furious and voter intimidation issues) will go a long way towards convincing people that crime is punished, even among the powerful.

For the Select Committee, the task is to figure out just how Obama and Co have managed to subvert our government institutions and then to propose legislation to fix the problem.  Clearly, the President has far too much latitude in carrying out the duties of his office and it is time the Imperial Presidency is reigned in and brought firmly back under the rule of law.  Severe criminal penalties must be enacted for even the lowest-level government officials who engage in partisan political activity – this to prevent the bosses from getting the troops to do things, then claiming that it was just low level staffers out of control.  But a 25 year jail term on doing things like the IRS agents did and they’ll pause before following orders.  These days, Congress writes vague laws and leaves it up to the Judiciary and Executive to sort them out – that must stop.  Very specific laws need to be written clearly defining the responsibilities of personnel all up and down the federal chain of command and clearly stating what they may or may not do, especially as regards partisan political activity.  A Select Committee would be able to find out who is doing what, why and how it may be stopped.

Of course, we also need to reign in the power of Congress, and the Courts, as well – but right now it is the Executive (greedy, corrupt and incompetent) which is threatening the liberties of the American people and it must be brought to heel.

And don’t forget, if you really want to know what has happened in the past four years, pick up your copy of 150 Reasons Why Barack Obama is the Worst President in History, today.

UPDATE:  Seems that the White House, getting at a loss, has decided to go with a “we’re idiots” defense regarding Benghazi.  No, you didn’t read that wrong:

“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”

I still think they are liars, too.

Give Democracy a Chance

Mark Noonan120 Comments

It occurred to me a little earlier today that there never was a mass, popular movement to created the United States Federal Reserve.  There also wasn’t any such thing to legalize abortion.  Or to create the Environmental Protection Agency  Doesn’t seem to have been many mobs rioting in favor of a Department of Education.  Don’t seem to remember us voting on a ban on smoking in airplanes.  You get the picture – quite a lot of things we take for granted as part of our political structure did not spring from a popular movement…they were imposed on us.  To be sure, some of them were voted on in Congress, but its not like Congressmen running in the 1912 election actually campaigned on establishing the Federal Reserve and while Nixon said a lot of things to get elected in 1968, I don’t think “I promise to create a bureaucratic nightmare called the EPA” among his promises.

The point here is that for an allegedly democratic republic, we sure don’t have a lot of democracy these days.  Things are proposed, deals are made behind closed doors and things which are allegedly laws ooze out…only to be sliced and diced endlessly by judges and bureaucrats as well-heeled special interests make sure they are taken care of.  I want a bit more democracy – a bit more mob rule, as it were.

I’m telling you, I’m willing to put everything up for a vote – including the 1st and 2nd amendments.  Lets have a vote, people – let us see what the real will of the people is.  Marches and demonstrations and furious arguments across the fruited plains – and then we vote and see what we have.  At least we’ll all know we participated in what we’re living under – we’ll know that we, the people, took a hand in ruling our own destiny.  Of course, I’m very willing to do this because I suspect that my point of view would come out on top in a fair vote 9 out of 10 times.

What say you, fellow Americans?  Anyone out there willing to actually have the people decide?